Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Discussion Point 3 - Chere

Discussion Point: The digital desktop shifts the responsibility of preparing artwork for reproduction to the designer. Identify an area of file preparation you need to learn more about and provide an overview (200 word max) of the process and its significance


An area of file preparation I would like to learn more about is colour spaces. It is something we've had direct experience with in the course of this elective. Colour spaces impacts accurate, consistent reproduction,
which fuels my concern. As it is a mix of knowledge and trial-and-error, I feel the best thing to do is to
leave oneself enough buffer time with hardcopies / trying out various printers to accurately ascertain the final look of the printed product. (of course, in conjunction with knowledge of colour profiles, paper, differing software/calibration/lighting conditions, and the many factors that affect how ink on paper looks!) 

Some interesting points I found out while reading up include:

- There are digital printers with more than 4 colours (for example Hexachrome)

- Rich Black / Litho Black is a useful swatch to keep on hand for deep, deep blacks. It is 70%, 40%, 40%, 100% (CMYK order)

- This chart:




Sources

Know Your Onions by Drew de Soto (an excellent read!)

Discussion Point 2 - Chere

Discussion Point 2 : Select two innovative typographic designers - one pre-digital (1984), the other contemporary. Provide a brief comparative analysis of their contributions to typographic practice supported by relevant examples of their work


Sarah Wyman Whitman vs Barbara deWilde



(Noticing how all the featured designers mentioned in the online lecture were male, I eventually found the book Women in Graphic Design and came upon these two designers.)


Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904) pioneered the role of artist-designer in the book industry and in the process revolutionized trade bookbinding. A highly-regarded Boston artist and socialite who gathered around herself a salon comprised of many of the city and region’s best-known writers, she adopted the role of mediator between her author friends and the publisher George Mifflin, whom she knew socially. Her work echoed the Arts and Crafts Movement that viewed art and life as inseparable; she wrote that “all forms of labor are beautiful and sacred because…it all has the stamp of nobility, being essential to the world’s need.” As Betty Smith has noted, Whitman became “the first professional woman artist regularly employed by a Boston publisher to give their mass-produced book covers a sense of simple elegance through line, color, and lettering.” (Boston Public Library)


Possibly in reaction to the rather overwrought covers that were the norm in the 1870s and 1880s, Whitman reduced book decoration to the essential. Although she designed "special" editions in vellum with gold stamping, the majority of her work for the mass market employed two colors of cloth and a single color of ink for stamping. The production costs for Whitman's book covers were probably quite low when weighed against their effectiveness as advertising tools. (Library of Rochester)

Sarah Whitman covers from the gorgeous flickr set (Boston Public Library)




It would be hard to overstate the impact of Barbara deWilde on contemporary book cover design. Alongside Carol Devine Carson, Chip Kidd and Archie Ferguson, Barbara’s designs not only defined the bold, visual aesthetic now commonly associated with Knopf, but helped reinvent American book cover design in the 1990′s.


Barbara left book publishing in 2000 to become the design director of Martha Stewart Living – where she successfully implemented a redesign of the magazine, but returned to Knopf  seven years later and created more characteristically distinctive book cover designs, including the jacket for the Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. (The Casual Optimist, 2012)


Source: Women in Graphic Design (Breuer & Meer, 2012)


Further book jacket design from deWilde

Comparision:
Both designers display masterful use of negative space that helps provoke a sense of  'specialness'; it imbues the book with an aura of something a little extraordinary. It makes the viewer curious and compels one to pick up the book. This sense of elevation would probably not be as effective if not for the existing sea of unremarkable book covers, in both their respective time frames. Both also display considered materiality; in Whitman's case cloth was carefully selected, as with colour, and in her letters she displayed a keen consideration for the story contained within the pages. In deWilde's book jacket work, especially in the 90s, what set her work apart were plastic yet plush jacket materials; a trend that remains popular in bookstores today. All in all looking at the work of these designers has been thought provoking.



------------------------

Sources
 
Breuer, G., & Meer, J. (2012). Women in graphic design 1890-2012. Jovis Verlag Gmbh.

http://2000pounds.com/2012/12/14/a-history-of-publishers-bindings-part-four-women-designers-and-conclusion/

Sunday, 9 June 2013

Discussion Point:3

The digital desktop shifts the responsibility of preparing artwork for reproduction to the designer. Identify an area of file preparation you need to learn more about and provide and overview (200 word max) of the process and its significance.

When I’m thinking about the area of file preparation that I need to learn more about it must be the colour management. As we know, we can create lots of colour in RBG mode, but some of them are not achievable if we using a standard four-color process printing. Therefore, we should start our document in CMYK colour mode to make sure that we have a better idea of how ours colour are going to print.
Also, we need to use Grayscale for Black and White artwork or images. We use extraordinary grayscale printing profiles that will only use the black, light black, and light light black inks to produce superior gray tones, without any color shift.

There are 2 types of black we can use when we doing printing—Rich black, and black. If we want an area of solid black in a document, we should us rich black, because it can make be mixing other colour of ink with black ink to produce a darker and deeper black.

Referencing:
Panacchia, C. (2010), A Guide to preparing Files for Print, from <http://designinstruct.com/print-design/a-guide-to-preparing-files-for-print/>, Design Instruct. [Access on 10th Jun 2013]

Discussion Point: Cultural and contextual consideration for online text


Paul Renner is a German type designer; he created Futura between 1924 and 1926. Renner shared many of its views, believing that a modern typeface should express models rather than be a revival of previous design. Futura was commercially released in 1927, commissioned by the Bauer type foundry.

Renner avoided creating any non-essential elements, making use of basic geometric proportions with no serifs or frills, while designing Futura. This font is crisp, clean froms reflect the appearance of efficiency and forwardness even today.

His initial design experimented with several geometrically constructed character alternatives and old-style figures, which can be found in the typeface AEG Renner. AEG Renner is a two weight custom version of the headline typeface Architype Renner. Paul Renner’s experimental characters are included as alternatives in the orginal Architype Collections. Named AEG Renner for the client to aid specification, both regular and bold weights include the distinctive, alternative lowercase m and n in the main Keystroke positions.  

What lead Futura success? Futura spawned a range of new geometric sans-serif typefaces, such as Kabel and Century Gothic, among others. Now over 80 years since its creation, many foundries have released variations of Futura in the digital form, Adobe being the one of the most commonly used.

Gutura have become an extremely popular typeface for countless corporate logos, commercial products, films and advertisements for years. In fact, so popular that certain art directors had began boycotting its use in with Art Directors Against Futura Extra Bold Condensed published in 1992’s TDC Typography 13.

Regardless, Futura remains one of the most used sans-serif fonts today with no signs of slowing down.


                                                                      

Matthew Carter is a type designer and the son of the English typographer Harry Carter. He designed the early 1.0 web fonts Verdana and Georgia for Microsoft, and these fonts are tuned to be extremely legible even at very small sixe on the screen.  In 1997, he was awarded the TDC Medal, the award from the Type Directors Club presented to those “who have made significant contributions to the life, art, and craft of typography. In 2010, he was named a MacArthur Fellow based on his “exceptional creativity, as demonstrated through a track record of significant achievement and manifest promise for important future advances”.

Verdana was designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft in the mid-90s, specifically to improve on-screen readability. The font first shipped with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3 in 1996. Being one of the ‘Core fonts for the web’— Verdana has become one of the most widely used fonts on the web. In 2010, it appears Verdana mat also become one of the most widely used font offline as well.

The digit 1(one) in Verdana was giver a horizontal base and a hook in the upper left to distinguish it from lowercase/ (L) and uppercase/ (i).

                                                                   

After 50 years of the iconic Futura typeface, IKEA has made a switch to Verdana. In the 2010 IKEA catalog, they changed all typography to the Microsoft font. The font will replace IKEA Sans (Futura), to Verdana.

According to Vier5 "you cannot work with modern pictures and at the same time use the typefaces of the last 50 years. The time for these typefaces is gone.", “our times require our own letterforms.”

Nowadays, as the digitalized and distributed in network, some letterforms are extremely difficult to read on computer. The change in IKEA might just make the online catalog easier to read, and easier to process. For this reason, they switched to what it sees as a more functional typeface: Verdana. We’’, that's what the Internet has made us, right? 






DISCUSSION POINT 3 – CANDY

The digital desktop shifts the responsibility of preparing artwork for reproduction to the designer. Identify an area of file preparation you need to learn more about and provide an overview (200 word max) of the process and its significance.


I think I really need to learn more about the image file formats of file preparation. Before this lecture, I think the best formats for output definitely could be PDF and TIFF. And I always use PDF to print. From my understanding, EPS must be used a specific software to create. A TIFF file is the most widely used file format in desktop publishing today. It is a raster-based file that supports the following: RGB, CMYK, Grayscale, Lab, and Indexed color. TIFF files can be compressed by using loss less compression approach or JPEG lossy compression. For high-end print production, it is the best practice to use a very small amount of JPEG compression. The JPEG compression approach is a lossy compression that will degrade image quality when used in large amounts.


References:

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Discussion Point 3

Identify an area of file preparation you need to learn more about and provide an overview (200 word max) of the process and its significance.

Colour Space:

A "colour space" is a conceptual tool for understanding the colour capabilities of a digital file. When trying to reproduce colour on a device, colour spaces can show whether you will be able to retain shadow/highlight detail, colour saturation, and by how much either will be compromised.

Unlike an artist's palette, colour spaces remain invisible and serve only as behind the scenes calculations, but learning to visualise them can help you to identify the most suitable colour space to use for a project.

Precise Colour Management = the slight differences in colour on screen including ambient light, artificial lighting, monitor calibration and the colour profile of files

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: what you see onscreen is not a true representation of the print colour of your work.

TYPES of Colour Spaces: DEVICE DEPENDENT & WORKING SPACES
There are many different types of colour spaces and applications including:
  • Device-dependent spaces: express relative colour - the subset of colours displayed using a monitor, printer, camera or scanner.
  • Device-independent spaces: express colour in absolute terms - a universal colour reference, useful to compare with other devices. 
  • Working spaces: use image editing programs and file formats to constrain the range of colors to a standard palette - most common  in digital photography are RGB and CMYK.  
Reference:
  • http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-spaces.htm

Discussion Point 3 - Yuni

Identify an area of file preparation you need to learn more about and provide an overview (200 word max) of the process and its significance.

For the tl;dr crowd: Page order.

It might sound like a very simple thing, but if you're printing a booklet, putting your page in order can be tricky. I'm talking about booklets that use saddle-stich or staple binding, specifically, where you're printing four pages on the same sheet of paper and folding it in half. You don't want to work hard on your layouts and images, but end up with completely wrong page order for your booklet! A booklet is only as good as its page order. One might even say. (Okay, no one says that, but it's true nonetheless!)

Here's a visualisation:


Now most people who are familiar with InDesign know there's a feature for this in the software. You can just go to "File" > "Print Booklet..." 

 
Then under "Setup", choose the pages you want to print, and go to "Preview" to check the pages.


To make sure the pages are correct I normally make a teeny tiny booklet, just out of some scrap papers, write the page numbers on the mini booklet, and match that with the one on screen.

Ideally, after this, you'll press "Print", but what if you're printing it somewhere else, and your printer doesn't accept InDesign files? Fret not, you can click "Print Settings...".


Here, choose "PostScript File" for the "Printer" option, choose your paper size, printer's marks, bleed, etc under the various options, then click "Ok"


Now press "Print", your file will now be saved with a ".ps" extension. This might seem unfamiliar to you, but you can use Adobe Acrobat Pro, or even Preview in Mac computers to open it, and it will give you a PDF file of your booklet, in the booklet order, ready to print!

References:

  • http://help.adobe.com/en_US/indesign/cs/using/WSa285fff53dea4f8617383751001ea8cb3f-704ba.html

Discussion Point 3- Rachael Hillier

The digital desktop shifts the responsibility of preparing artwork for reproduction to the designer. Identify an area of file preparation you need to learn more about and provide an overview (200 word max) of the process and its significance.

Printer’s Marks and Bleed Areas

I find that I am still lacking in the terminology of printing and why I should get into the habit of using printer’s marks and bleed areas. They help the printer to line up and make sure that the print is running properly and make sure that mistakes are kept to a minimum. They determine where to trim the paper after printing, align separation films when producing proofs, measure film for correct calibration and dot density, and allow colour consistency within a print run.

Printer’s marks including -

- Crop marks that add cross hairs in each corner that determine where the page is to trim it.

- Bleed marks add lines that define the amount of extra space outside the page size that show how far you should extend your artwork of the page.

- Registration marks add small targets outside the page area that the printer can align different separations to in a colour document

- Colour bars add small squares of colour representing CMYK tints and grey tints that the printer follows for colour consistency


These marks are used for all manner of different areas of printing, from the beginning, making sure your print is lined up correctly through to colour consistency and the finishing of the job, aligning and trimming.

Vinko - File Formats

Discussion Point: The digital desktop shifts the responsibility of preparing artwork for reproduction to the designer. Identify an area of file preparation you need to learn more about and provide and overview (200 word max) of the process and its significance.



The area of file preparation I really need to look more into would easily have to be file formats. There are a large variety of file formats that all have their pros and cons. The main differences between them all from my understanding is that some of the file sizes are made smaller and are compressed and so in turn information is lost and the quality of the file drops. These smaller file formats are great to use while working on the design as they don't take as long to process for the computer. Then there are other file formats which are much larger, take longer to process by a computer but have all the original information available resulting in better quality output. I think it is crucial for me as a graphic designer to understand how all these file formats work so that I know which ones are best to use for certain occasions.   

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Discussion Point 2 - Shinn Vs Bell


Pre-Digital

Nick Shinn is a typeface designer, and attended school at Leeds Polytechnic where he earned a Dip. AD in Fine Art.
In 1976 he moved to Canada, where he worked as an art director and creative director at a number of Toronto advertising agencies from the 1970s into the 1980s. In 1989 he started ShinnDesign, his own digital studio, specializing in publication design. Nick has designed everything from books and magazines, to more recently web sites.
Since 1980 he has designed over 20 typeface families, including Walburn and Brown for the Canadian daily “The Globe and Mail”. In 1999 he launched ShinnType, which now publishes and markets his fonts worldwide. Nick is a prolific writer and often contributes to “Graphic Exchange” magazine, as well as many other publications.
Of his typeface designs, Shinn says, “Beautiful letters aren’t enough to make a successful typeface; I also want to create faces that are design solutions.”




Contemporary

Jill Bell is an American lettering artist, calligrapher and type designer.
A graduate of  UCLA and Otis/Parsons, Bell is a graphic artist who creates custom lettering, logotypes, titles, fonts and handwriting for advertising, entertainment, packaging, and publishing. Before establishing herself as a freelance artist, she worked as a sign painter in a shop.
Bell has created fonts for most of the major type foundries including ITC (International Typeface Corporation), Adobe Systems and Monotype Corporation. Her fonts include: Gigi, Smack, Carumba, Hollyweird, Bruno and Swank. She has also designed and produced proprietary fonts for companies including Loehmann'sEnesco, GSW Worldwide, the Navicor Group and Nestle. 
She has spoken at numerous schools, universities, professional organizations and conferences, and was the guest speaker at TypoTechnica 2002 in Heidelberg, Germany. She was a Maestro (judging calligraphy, speaking and teaching) at the Delphic Games in Jeju, South Korea in September, 2009.



Comparison

In comparison, Shinn created typefaces originally for newspapers and thus his typefaces like Walburn and Brown are very clean and simplistic for easy reading on a hard copy medium. Bell’s creations on the other hand, such as Gigi, are much more experimental, with huge serifs and particular stylistic qualities. This most probably reflects the competition between websites today, where Bell has created very original typefaces to attract attention in a digital world of uncountable typefaces. 

Discussion Point 2: Soul Bass Vs Wang Zhihong

Wang ZhiHong (1975-)

An award-winning graphic designer based in Taiwan, 38 year old ZiHong graduated from Department of Advertisement Design at Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School in 1995 and started his studio in 2000. He has collaborated with trade publishers in launching his imprints “INSIGHT” and “SOURCE”, two bold works featuring translated titles on art and design, with many renowned Japanesse and Taiwanesse artists including, Kashiwa Sato, Araki Nobuyoshi, Kenya Hara, Yayoi Kusama, Tadanori Yokoo and Otl Aicher. A six-time winner of Golden Butterfly Awards (One of Taiwan's most treasured Graphic design and Creative Industry awards), Taiwan’s highest honor for excellence in book design. This has been the main focus of his work for the last few years. He has also won the Kaoru Kasai’s Choice Award and Silver Awards from HKDA Global Design Awards, as well as Excellent Works from Tokyo Type Directors Club Annual Awards.

What I find Most interesting about some of his work is the attention to detail within context. The examples below show ho ZiHong used the essence of the work itself to create a meaningful conceptualisation of his own finished design. READ and BREAD are perhaps the clearest examples. 

You Can Find more of his work, here, at his website.







Saul Bass: (1920-1996)

"Design is thinking made visible."

Born in Manhattan, Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Oscar winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences, film posters and corporate logos. He is also most noted for the close affiliation and work he has completed for Alfred Hitchcock Films, with his most famous animation being the opening sequence for "Anatomy of a Murder".

Bass uses modernist techniques combined with simple form and animation that created revolutionary results for the time. It was this kind of innovative, revolutionary work that made Bass a revered graphic designer. Before the advent of Bass’s title sequences in the 1950s, titles were generally static, separate from the movie, and it was common for them to be projected onto the cinema curtains, the curtains only being raised right before the first scene of the movie. (So in other words, it's him to blame for the ever growing title sequences to wade through!)

However, it has also been noted that once you see the opening titles to a film that Saul Bass has done, you can walk out of the theatre because you know exactly what the film's about: he has shown you the entire thing in the first minute or so. Which in the case of "Anatomy of a murder" (see below) seems true.


Below is also a montage of some of Bass' most famous pieces:


References: